Usage

Is there any difference between may and can when used to request or express permission, as in may/can I ask you a few questions? Many people feel that can should be reserved for expressions denoting capability, as in can you swim?, rather than for those relating to permission. May is, generally speaking, a politer and more formal way of asking for something, and is the better choice in more formal contexts.

Origin

Old Englishcunnan 'know' (in Middle English 'know how to'), related to Dutchkunnen and German können; from an Indo-European root shared by Latingnoscere 'know' and Greek gignōskein 'know'.

Nowadays a can is a cylindrical metal container, but its ancestor, Old English cann, was a general word for any container for liquids. It may come from Latin canna ( see cannon). If someone carries the can they take responsibility for a mistake or misdeed. The origin of this expression is uncertain, but it probably started life as early 20th-century naval slang. One theory is that it refers to the beer can or keg which one sailor carried for all his companions. An early version was to carry the can back, which might have referred to returning the empties. In film-making and recording you can talk about something being in the can when it has been captured on tape or film to a satisfactory standard. Though videotape and digital recordings are not stored in cans, the older expression has been transferred to them. See also worm, cunning, know

Origin

Nowadays a can is a cylindrical metal container, but its ancestor, Old English cann, was a general word for any container for liquids. It may come from Latin canna ( see cannon). If someone carries the can they take responsibility for a mistake or misdeed. The origin of this expression is uncertain, but it probably started life as early 20th-century naval slang. One theory is that it refers to the beer can or keg which one sailor carried for all his companions. An early version was to carry the can back, which might have referred to returning the empties. In film-making and recording you can talk about something being in the can when it has been captured on tape or film to a satisfactory standard. Though videotape and digital recordings are not stored in cans, the older expression has been transferred to them. See also worm, cunning, know